A reminder if we get too uppity the cockroaches will call in their close cousins, evolved along a more predatory theme–mantises.
The person who found out must have been a brave one.
Or perhaps she hated chicken.
Insects in general are much more resistant to radiation than mammals, but what are the “obvious reasons”? Remember, if you fry a cockroach with, say, 100 Gy, it will have absorbed less energy in total than a human because it is smaller, but the energy per unit mass is the same. But the human is 100% a goner whereas the roach will probably be OK. We have to consider the roach’s anatomy and biology to explain it, but it’s not merely because it’s small. I don’t know the exact answer.
Or a drunk one. Requisite photo of bug kebabs from the now defunct Beijing Night Market, where many drunken dares were fulfilled:
The Wikipedia page on cockroaches (linked somewhere up-thread, IIRC) explains why cockroaches will survive a nuclear holocaust. Briefly: Only those that are molting at the time will be killed. Others may suffer longer-term damage but many will survive.
Or a hungry one.
And quite a lot of groups of people eat insects; sometimes as a delicacy. We’re mostly WEIRD in not doing so.
I think it is a question of alternatives. Or drunk betting.
Florida has its own special version of the cockroach: the palmetto bug. These things are my biggest phobia; not only are they very big but they are incredibly resilient. I’ve had ones come at me - Terminator 2 style - after I was sure I’d squashed ‘em with a shoe.
I’ve often suspected the same about truffles.
Yeah, you’re right.
I was aware about insects’ higher resistance, and how many smaller insects than cockroaches are more resistant, and how water bears are better still, and “common sensed” the reason.
So I should be clear that that part was just a WAG.
I can WAG why the WAG might be true though:
(Disclaimer: There are bound to be apostrophe errors here, it’s a surprisingly awkward paragraph to write.)
If the chance of a given mutation producing a cancerous cell is the same between one of my cells’ and a cockroach’s (and why wouldn’t it be, we’re not so different at that level?), and a thousand times more of my cells were mutated by a radiation field than the roach’s because I have a thousand times the volume (I’m just trying to keep the numbers simple), then I will have a thousand times higher likelihood of developing cancer.
Sometimes the absolute number matters.
So, do you also cook food for yourself (or for anybody else) in that microwave oven?
(See the OP)
For sale: used microwave, needs cleaning, moderate crust on the walls.
Water bears (tardigrades) are utterly indestructable. I don’t think they are even a carbon-based life form. They are an unobtanium-based life form.
I always assumed that a cockroaches role is to ensure that at least something is considered worse than being a pollitician.
Then the cockroaches had better up their game. (Though I certainly hope they don’t really.)
So cockroaches are mammals now!
When cockroach milk is commercially produced for the starving masses and readily available in the Dairy (?) section of your supermarket, I wonder what the product will be called?
C-Milc of course! Produced from cockroaches that have been exclusively fed on the bodies of other cockroaches for that double-cockroached goodness!
I just had an image of a giant cockroach with huge tits. I’ll go cry myself to sleep now.
The German cockroach ( Blattella germanica ) is a introduced pest. If someone wiped it out in the American continents, that would be a Good Thing.
But there are many native cockroaches that fill an important nice in the environment. They also do not tend to infest homes, although indeed the giant flying ones can give someone bit of a start.
We had those in San Jose, and when they got inside the cats would eat them.